Category Archives: Food

Ruby and George are our baby Kunekune pigs. (Pronounced, ” Cooney Cooney.) Never heard of Kunekunes before? Neither had we! Their name translates to “fat and round” in the Maori Language, and they make good pets.

I am not much of a television watcher. That being said however; I love love love “The Incredible Dr. Pol” on Nat Geo Wild. On an episode this winter, a woman brought her Kunekune to Dr. Pol. It was love at first sight! Fuzzy pigs…what’s not to love??

Like this:

Lilly is one of our bodacious bovines. Anthony (one of our Jr Farmers) had his heart set on getting a mini cow as a pet. And not just any mini cow – he wanted a mini Scottish Highlander. He saved his money for over a year and in April 2014 was able to pick up his new pet!

Chickens

For years and years and years I have wanted chickens. (Not that anyone really wants chickens….what I wanted were the eggs.) Each spring, the local feed stores have oodles of the little peepers. I would look at them longingly, but the reality of no coop left me chickenless. So last year my husband went to a local farm supply store and bought ten chicks. Bantams. Bantams!!! What good are bantams!?!? They lay tiny eggs and they’re about the size of a cornish game hen when in the stew pot. (Why do I let him go to town alone?)

I have to say though, I kinda started to like those fluffy little feet of theirs and they seemed to have personality. But then they started crowing….yup…SIX of the ten were roosters – no eggs! Rooster noodle soup!

I made sure to order some layer/meat type birds to pick up the slack. The beauty part is that once you have the chickens, you are FORCED to come up with a coop. We should have done that years ago!

Turns out keeping guinea birds alive is trickier than one would think. They like to wander, the entire flock shares one brain (not actually verified), they are not very trainable and their biggest defense from predators is yelling like crazy. (Except when I am trying to catch them….then they are ninjas.)

Baby guineas are sooo cute!

Not so much when they get older…..uuuuuugggglllyyyy!

Luckily I don’t give up easily, as long as there are ticks I am GOING to have guinea birds. I don’t care how noisy they are. Besides, I have a bantam chicken trying to hatch a golf ball so if I give her some guinea eggs to sit on it will give her life purpose – I call that a “win-win”.

Ten years ago, I never would have believed how satisfying it can be to know exactly where dinner came from. Maybe part of it is that we live in the “Icebox of the Nation”– Lois and I always say gardening and/or farming up here is not for wimps, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. When I started trying to grow SOME of my own food, it was entirely in Grampa Ralph’s old galvanized buckets, not in an acre of tractor-tilled black dirt.
Two sisters can’t save the entire planet; but there are probably things we could all be doing better…

I am very nervous around poultry. (See “Guinea Monsters From Hell”) And I used to hate cooking. So this Martha Stewart-esque-ness is new to me. I have been growing, canning, cooking, drying and freezing food a lot more the last few years. Now, being unemployed AND on the Low Child Support Diet has encouraged me to do even more, and to do it better. It’s been a slow process, and many people have contributed along the way. Here are two that I remember.

One of my favorite bloggers is Jackie Clay. (Check her out here. Chop chop!) We are lucky to have this awesome lady in our community, and I have learned so much from her books and blogs about living off the land in this area code. I subscribed to her blog for several months before I even attempted canning on my own.